Academia, media and governmental misinformation about guns...and what else?

I was watching the myriad of reports about the AWB expiration the other day; Blood in the streets, Full auto revolvers shooting through schools, etc..

Then there are all the media outlets that gets the gun facts wrong everytime without fail.

Lies, misinformation and ignorance about guns, gun usage, gun owners are the norm.

Since we in the gun owner community know the facts we can usually spot the fallacious arguments, lies and misinformation quickly.

Then it hit me... What other lies and half truths are being reported?

I don't know crap about certain issues and all I have to go on is what is reported by major media outlets and the errornet.

Am I cynical or paranoid?

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Ewok

September 24, 2004, 05:04 PM

Am I cynical or paranoid?

Perhaps, but not about misinformation. ;)

sm

September 24, 2004, 05:16 PM

I think a lot of folks don't want to deal with Reality.
They escape any way they can, be it immediate gratification, procratination , or igoring.

Then we have the folks with the need for Greed.Be it Control, Ratings, Votes ...etc.

Tell folks what they want to hear long enough and they believe it. I guess in hopes that Reality will disappear and Utopia reigns.

Standing Wolf

September 24, 2004, 06:18 PM

What other lies and half truths are being reported?

If it's political, remotely political, or capable of being politicized, you can count on the leftist extremists to lie about it.

MuzzleBlast

September 26, 2004, 10:01 AM

Am I cynical or paranoid?You're a rational adult. You have come to realize that you are being lied to, and can therefor not trust the source of those lies, so you wash EVERYTHING you hear through those sources through your BS detector.

BerettaNut92

September 26, 2004, 10:18 AM

Am I cynical or paranoid?

No, you've just been paying attention :)

jefnvk

September 26, 2004, 12:27 PM

Lies, misinformation and ignorance about guns, gun usage, gun owners are the norm.

You know, if you replaced 'guns' with just about anything else (Jewish, Black, Asian, illegal drug user) There would be a massive outcry from the piublic on discrimination

White Horseradish

September 26, 2004, 01:05 PM

If it's political, remotely political, or capable of being politicized, you can count on the leftist extremists to lie about it.

You can also count on the rightist extremists doing the same.

Anyone who thinks that politicians of brand X are more truthful than politicians of brand Y is dreaming. It's not that they lie less, it's just that their lies are more acceptable in your worldview.

Justin

September 26, 2004, 02:20 PM

As someone who knows Standing Wolf in the real world (tm) I find it highly unlikely that he'd take any guff off of right-wing swine, either.

When it comes to media bias, yes there are deliberate attempts to fabricate and twist things. (Dan Rather only being the most recent and obvious example.)

However, as the old saying goes, never chalk up to conspiracy when simple stupidity will suffice.

In other words, the game is rigged against reporters who can't possibly have any sort of in depth knowledge on even a small cross-section of what they report on.

I have a sneaking suspicion that a large pile of gold awaits anyone who can end or reduce this sort of inaccuracy in reporting. (And to some extent, this is what has happened among the blogging community.)

reagansquad

September 26, 2004, 02:34 PM

Actually, the extreme left gets screwed over by the media even worse than you guys do. Believe it or not it's the centrists you have to look out for. The centrist, nationalist republicrats are the only party in power.

Other lies you say?

How about lying about protest numbers in every major protest for the last 10 years?

Or how about the war on drugs? Ever hear what the gov't did to Humbolt county Ca? Some folks up in the woods had a few weed plants, so the ARMY (not the national guard, the ARMY) jumps out of some blackhawks, kicks down the doors, holds guns to people heads, pulls up 10 hemp plants, and flies in a bunch more from their own stash then calls in the media. Yeehaw.

Or how about the Earth Liberation front? I agree that these guys are annoying, arrogant, and not really doing anyone any good... but they've never killed anyone. Doesn't that make them, by definition, not terrorists?

entropy

September 28, 2004, 02:57 AM

"Or how about the Earth Liberation front? I agree that these guys are annoying, arrogant, and not really doing anyone any good... but they've never killed anyone. Doesn't that make them, by definition, not terrorists?"

No. Terrorism takes many forms, not all of which result in lives taken. An apropo example would be cyberterrorism. Not many lives lost there, but huge disruption of a large part of society. Ecoterrorism such as condoned by ELF, ALF, PITA (oops, PETA ;) ) is realtively bloodless, unless you include all the tame animals that those well-meaning but sadly misinformed (By the Disney mentality) PITA's let loose that subsequently die. Yet it is terrorism just the same as Al-Quida's activities, in that a realtively small segment of the population attempts to shock, disrupt, and paralyze the rest into capitulating to their (usually) ill-advised cause.
I've been to Humboldt County. You don't dare go off into the wild for fear of never coming back for having 'discovered' someone's plantation. They prefer to hire ex-military types to guard them; One grower attempted to recruit me while I was visiting a freind, because after talking to me, and finding out my MOS )Supply/Armorer), he thought I'd be perfect for the job. I declined, even though the wages were high, not my thing.;)

reagansquad

September 28, 2004, 04:09 AM

terrorism

n : the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear [syn: act of terrorism, terrorist act]

I guess the judgement call here is if destruction of property constitutes violence. :-/

Either way the ELF is stupid. :neener:

MuzzleBlast

September 28, 2004, 09:21 AM

Or how about the Earth Liberation front? I agree that these guys are annoying, arrogant, and not really doing anyone any good... but they've never killed anyone. Doesn't that make them, by definition, not terrorists?Does arson count? They have set fire to at least one BLM holding facility for mustangs.

mhdishere

September 28, 2004, 09:30 AM

Regarding the media, people don't understand the purpose of the media. They think, wrongly, that the purpose of the media is to inform the people who are using it to get their news, to make sure they have all the information they need to make informed choices on the issues of the day.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

The purpose of the media is to sell advertizing. As long as sponsors are buying air time or newspaper/magazine space for their ads the media has done its job. Sensationalism sells, so the sounds of machineguns firing sells the story about the AWB, which in turn sells the commercials on either side of the "news" spot.

If the media reported the demise of the AWB honestly, saying it was meaningless legislation that didn't accomplish a thing, there'd be no follow-ups, people wouldn't bother buying the paper the next day to find out what the status is on these weapons, and therefore they wouldn't be looking at all those advertizements. They only report honestly when they're (a) sued by someone they've lied about or (b) when people boycott the sponsors because of the lies told. You have to hit them in the pocketbooks.

The Rabbi

September 28, 2004, 10:06 AM

Or how about the war on drugs? Ever hear what the gov't did to Humbolt county Ca? Some folks up in the woods had a few weed plants, so the ARMY (not the national guard, the ARMY) jumps out of some blackhawks, kicks down the doors, holds guns to people heads, pulls up 10 hemp plants, and flies in a bunch more from their own stash then calls in the media. Yeehaw.

You have a source for that? It sounds incredible as it would violate the Posse Comitatus law.

Hawkmoon

September 28, 2004, 10:52 AM

A very close friend is a retired newspaper editor and professor of journalism. He acknowkedges that "journalism" is dead. The mantra of the journalist used to be to report the facts. As Joe Friday used to say, "The facts, M'am, just the facts." Who, what, where, when, and why.

No more. First, as noted, the purpose of "the media" has been perverted. It is no longer forst to report the news and secondly, hopefully, to have sponsors pay for providing that service. The primary purpose has now become the selling of advertising, and content is selected and edited with that in mind. The single surviving newspaper in my nearby city is suitable only as emergency asswipe for the simple reason that the city is corrupt, and the publisher won't allow anything true to be reported because doing so would alienate advertisers.

However, the problem extends even down to the little independent weekely rags that show up free in the mailbox every week. Reporters today are not paid enough to be "journalists." A journalist would ensure that each story is factually correct, and covers the five Ws (see above). The people who write for newspapers today don't have enough time and aren't paid enough to research and verify every story. As a result, they take whatever press release(s) they receive and dutifully regurgitate the content thereof as "news" -- sometimes believeing that it is correct, often recognizing that it is biased and even untrue, and not caring.

As a man I used to work for was fond of saying, "Everything you read in the media is true ... unless you have first-hand knowledge of the facts."

The Rabbi

September 28, 2004, 09:06 PM

Ever hear what the gov't did to Humbolt county Ca? Some folks up in the woods had a few weed plants,

You make it sound like a couple of peace-loving people minding their own business had a plant or two in the back yard and those mean nasty Feds sent the Army Rangers. That is spin worthy of a Michael Moore film.
Here is the account:

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n425/a05.html

I would say that 14,000 plants growing in a controlled greenhouse environment protected by illegal automatic weapons is not something anyone should be supporting, esp on a gun site.

UnknownSailor

September 28, 2004, 10:17 PM

I've seen this talked about before, on a blog. Back in the day (whenever that was), when reporters had beats, they would actually learn something about what they were reporting on, because they only covered one particular style of story for years on end.

Today, this is unheard of. I see it all the time in stories about media piracy, Fair use isn't ever mentioned when it comes to reporting about assinine legislation like DCMA, or what have you. The reporter and editor don't know any better, so the go with what they have.

SkunkApe

September 28, 2004, 10:55 PM

What other lies and half truths are being reported?

Here's one: They want you do believe that that are to distinct major political parties in this country.

carp killer

September 28, 2004, 11:39 PM

When I have first hand knowledge about a news story, the media consistantly get the story wrong. Maybe mis identify a name or geographic place. But some fact is screwed up. Always.

dustind

September 29, 2004, 12:24 AM

I can vouch for airplanes, cars, motorcycles, off road vehicles, snowmobiles, and several social gatherings being on par with firearms in the media. There are other things that I could add, but I can not remember them right now.

wasrjoe

September 29, 2004, 01:37 AM

I was interviewed for a silly little thing in a local paper before. Some yokel asked my friend and I what we thought of Best Buy and where we bought our CDs. I don't know who the hell they quoted but it wasn't us.

joe sixpack

September 29, 2004, 03:43 AM

I had an article once written about me when I was in Charlotte, NC.
It was not an unkind article, but in that I was interviewed the words I used and the context that I used them in was edited to reinforce a particular slant of the reporter or paper.

For the most part the media is not about true information which would actually assist one in making up his mind about something. It's about money through the creating and selling of fear, and making a point that backs up their bias.
The more "bad" things they can find whether in Iraq, scandals,
crime and gun control, the more people buy their rags and tune in to listen to their blather.

cheers, js

Gunstar1

September 29, 2004, 03:09 PM

When the second hurricane came towards Florida, there were already people saying Global warming was causing them and they will get worse. :banghead:

However the actual Meteorologists were saying that the lack of Hurricanes in the past few decades were the exception and we are just now getting back to the "norm".

Remember the hole in the ozone? The first balloon sent up reported a hole, so is the hole natural or man-made?

CO2 is being labeled by some countries and some states as pollution. Since CO2 is a part of the greenhouse effect, then some think by taxing it or trading it then we will stop "global warming".

Climate change is natural. The climate has changed many times in the Earth's past, Greenland used to be green (the Earth was warmer when the Vickings used Greenland for farm land), New York has huge boulders in Central park (placed there when the last major Ice Age was comming to an end), Alaska has evidence that the ocean level was once much lower (land bridge between Alaska and Siberia), and Florida has evidence that the ocean level was once much higher (the Keys are old coral reef beds indicating that the keys were once under water).

Media reports that this year (and for the past few years) is the hottest in 500 years. :fire:
They really mean, this year is the hottest since the Little Ice Age when Greenland was turned to ice. If you look back 1000 years, we are no where near the hottest year, in fact we are below the mean temperature.

So if the Climate is always changing, will anything we do cause it to stop changing?

Since we know carbon regulation will cause energy costs to go up, and energy is needed to cool off people or keep people warm, If carbon regulation does not stop climate change, the money spent on usless regulation could have been used to adapt our surroundings to the different climate. People that cannot afford the energy might die becuase it costs too much to run an air conditioner.

That pretty much is the climate debate, spend billions of dollars now in hopes of stoping climate change, or wait and adapt to what comes as man has done in the past.

flatrock

September 29, 2004, 03:25 PM

Then it hit me... What other lies and half truths are being reported?

Anything the is in contradiction with George Soros' plan for the world gets smeared with well funded disinformation efforts.

Some of those goals are shared by the elite media. Those ture believers in the media treat the groups Soros funds like reliable sources for scientifically based facts, rather than groups that start with a conclusion, and then fabricate a web of quotes taken out of context and misused statistics to make themselves appear ligitimate.

Another good source of lies and half truths are the extremist environmentalists.

dustind

September 29, 2004, 03:37 PM

CO2 is responsible for about %1 of the greenhouse effect. Humans put about %1 of the CO2 into the air. Thus humans are responsible for 1/10,000th of the global warming from CO2. This also means that anyone trading CO2 or calling it pollution is a dumb:cuss:

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